The evolution and development of electronic technology and data transfer systems allow more users to interact with each other faster and more often. Extraordinary amounts of information and data are shared electronically at a nearly continuous rate. Users may post or send information or data of interest to others whenever and as often as the user chooses. The Internet provides users with access to various types of web content, such as web pages and other web documents or articles. For instance, the Internet may enable users to view articles or reports on a multitude of topics including, among other things, news reports (e.g., local, national, and world), weather reports, sports articles, reference material, financial content, social media, and other categories of information. Due to the large amount of information available on the Internet, various tools, such as search engines, have been developed to help users find web content pertaining to a particular topic. Search engines may enable users to search web content by keyword. For example, in response to receiving a keyword from a user, a search engine may return a list of web pages that relate to the keyword. In this way, search engines may enable a user to quickly locate and retrieve particular content items associated with specific search topics of interest.
In some cases, an amount of web content, such as web pages and other web documents, may collectively provide insight into web activity associated with particular topics. For example, a large number of web pages with references to a particular search topic (e.g., a new book or movie) may indicate a high level of web activity for the search topic. Similarly, a small number of web pages with references to a particular search topic may indicate a low level of web activity for the search topic. However, search engines and other tools for finding information on the Internet may not provide advertisers and other users with sufficient indications of trends in user accesses of particular content items. Moreover, search engines and other tools do not provide users or web site providers with up-to-date indications of the performance, or news or share worthiness, of content items.
Online advertising has become an important source of revenue for enterprises engaged in electronic commerce. Processes associated with technologies such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) enable a web page to be configured to display advertisements. Those advertisements may be targeted based on a user's preferences. In addition to advertisements, other material and resources on a web page may also be targeted for a particular user. In certain situations, it may be difficult to identify a user and/or obtain knowledge regarding that user. In these situations, and in others, it may be preferential to associate an advertisement directly with a particular content item.